Manager Keeps IGNORING Us! Developers Are UNSUPPORTED!

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hey folks uh I'm going to go to Reddit for a question um I'm on call all this week so I I'm not going to drive to the office so I'm not going to have any days to film I can't go to CrossFit because of my on call shift time so I won't be driving at all and uh it's going to be a a pretty week in general so um just from timing perspective and I'm burnt the hell out so I'm going to try to get get some of these done uh before I go to bed just wrapped up the live stream on my main Channel Dev leader that was pretty good uh it's great that some of you join over for that so thank you you can probably tell um for those of you that watch the live stream I was talking about being uh

introverted and the difference between the live stream you can probably tell between that and how I'm talking now like there's nothing left um but I wanted to go to Reddit for this topic and this one's about how do you how do you deal with a team leader manager who doesn't have time to support you I'm going to talk specifically about managers um and that's primarily because I don't have experience as funny as this is going to sound I don't have experience working under a team lead um at one point I was a team lead but basically had full comp View and was a manager so uh never got to sort of have the experience of working under a team lead so um the person who posted this was kind of talking about how they have whatever their manager Tech lead team lead he never has

time to support our team when we need him and even though we've made this clear nothing changes most of the time we're on our own and the questions aren't about code or hard skills are rather about internal company processes so um yeah I think with this kind of thing you have you know um when you have someone in that kind of position you have individuals on the team that are are looking to someone for answers they can be technical they can be whatever and then it's like okay well where's our support right and that's this is one of the reasons why when I talk about management I'm like it's very much a support role um different people have different perspectives on manager roles but I always you know frame it like um it's my it's my job to support the engineers on my team and

that's it like it's just it so I I feel like when people aren't there aren't making time then they're kind of failing at the that role so with that said if you have questions that you want answered before I dive into this one just a reminder leave them in the comments uh you can message me Dev leader on social media it's my main YouTube channel as well Nick centino on LinkedIn I did start to open up my uh my resume reviews so thanks to some folks for sending them in from code commute um if you go to Dev leader and you look for my my resume review series the time I'm recording this there's one uploaded there but that's there's a playlist for it that I'll keep adding to if you watch that video it will tell you how to go submit your resume um

for now it's totally free I it literally costs me money to go review your resume because I have to pay an editor the irony um so it's free for now if it if it starts to get super busy I will probably have no choice but to put it behind like a like a YouTube membership because I won't be I won't be able to sustain it it's like not feasible for me to go pay $50 to $100 to go review someone's resumee so maybe the channel will blow up and then it's fine and I can do that but uh I lose a lot of money doing it so how to go approach this kind of thing I wanted to start by saying I've been in situations like this um and I think in the beginning it's not it's not as obvious what's happening right and you'll

hopefully you'll hear me talk about some different perspectives on this like as a manager I will talk about how I can see this happening um so kind of like defending the manager in this position but also why it's not a good excuse sorry long day um so I think in the beginning when this starts to happen people don't really notice it it's not as obvious right hey had to push the one-on-one I had to push someone oneon-one today before a meeting um you know there was a lot there was basically like an hourish before a meeting I just had piles of messages coming on before a meeting I had to go present that and I was like I can't even be prepared to present and the topics that I'm being asked about are going to be in this meeting I physically don't have capacity so

um I have a completely full or empty day tomorrow it's I'm sure it'll get filled with stuff um so I just told the individual um who in our working relationship I feel comfortable enough saying this if it was a employee that was a little bit more either challenging or um I know they needed more support like then I would have to find ways around it so I could kind of lean into that so like hey I kind of broke one of my rules about moving one-on ones but not canceling outright but again this kind of thing can happen moving one-on ones canceling them hey happened this week and then like next week okay well it's only it's two weeks in a row it's not so bad or it's like it's been you know every other week or something so we missed a couple this month

not so bad but then it keeps going on right like one of- ones keep getting cancelled um schedule like I don't know if I've I've had it a little bit before where uh not um not in one On's just like not showing up but like meetings where like you're supposed to be collaborating with them on something and then they just like stop showing up and it's like M but like you're one of the stakeholders here so they're just absent from some of the things so I have experienced this um and the first part I was trying to get to here is like it can absolutely kind of sneak in right um when we when we read uh you can't see my screen but when you read something like this it's kind of like oh like yeah it's must be this very obvious abrupt like they

just start canceling one-on ones or they're never there it's not always how it starts so I'm saying that to kind of raise awareness because if this is a scenario you can kind of Imagine could happen you might be able to pick on some of the pick up on some of the signs as they're happening so that's the first part I wanted to mention can sneak up next part though is like maybe let's talk about um like both sides to this right so let me let me start by defending the manager okay so I'm putting my manager hat on my bald head and um let's talk about this so if you haven't seen my other videos I do try to make it very clear that I like talking about different perspectives that way we look at things differently so let me add the disclaimer here before

people on the internet get upset um I'm going to try and defend this position and it's not because I believe that this is a good excuse okay so you could have situations where managers they're employees too and they're like I need to focus on my career and what I've been told from my manager above me is that I need to focus on these particular things I don't have time for all this other stuff they're not looking at that they've told me this is the path I need to focus on this stuff that's what I'm doing it's me time I'm I'm getting there I'm breaking through this it's time for me and then they end up carving out more time for themselves to go work on whatever things that they were tasking with or to meet those expectations um and then that's less time for the

team right so this is literally a scenario that can happen if you think about it um you know every individual is going to have their own motivation that's for themselves in terms of their career advancement and if a manager is hyperfocusing on their growth and I would feel like this is a bad kind of growth path for a manager to stop focusing on the team but I can even say um I can I can say this with confidence actually so I'll use myself as an example in my entire management career out of the 12 and a half years I've been doing this I have been told once to focus more on the team and the caveat there is that there is uh metrics that were sent back and I know I understand why they're skewed in a particular way to give you another example shortly

after that I had almost a perfect score and I didn't do anything differently so just to give you an example so one time ever and a bit of a sort of technical thing there I have been told any other time about how to progress in my career and actually it's only been while at Microsoft visibility and guess what the way that I get visibility me is not by uh not by coaching my employees better it's not by uh understanding them better having more empathy for them that's not how I get visibility in my role at all it's actually quite the opposite I need to focus on things that I am doing so I can have the visibility so interestingly right there is this incentive for me to spend less time doing that of course no one would say oh spend less time doing it it's

just somehow have more time for these other things for visibility right or whatever it happens to be but I have personally in my career been given this is the path forward and it has nothing to do with focusing on my team more so if you think about it in my position so again I'm trying to use this other perspective and defended even though I don't I don't think it's a good idea if I were like hey well it's it's Nick time it's time to focus on me and my advancement I don't have more time I am literally at the absolute limit of anything I could possibly do for time um so okay you need me to to sort of make progress in these other things that aren't specific for my team okay so that means my team gets less attention if that's the only way

and it's time it's the the age of Nick right but um I will never do that ever and that might be a career limiting move depending on where I am but like that's not how I manage teams because I fundamentally disagree with it so yeah I can't it's hard to defend this one but I think that's a thing that people could do another thing that could happen is the same type of thing but um not consciously so this is just being like spread too thin this can happen from either inexperience from managers where they're Unsure how to prioritize things properly that's one possibility or or they're trying their best to make sure that everything is getting done they have a lot on their plate um this is one that I can empathize with a bit more I'm literally someone right now who I am completely

I'm I'm completely burnt out and there's a lot on my plate so you know as I'm talking about about this I'm trying to be transparent like I don't think it's a good excuse to be spread too thin and not do anything about it if you're spread too thin as a manager and you can't support your team you need to be raising awareness to that telling your manager hey I can't do my job effectively because of this so right now I feel personally spread pretty thin um I don't yet feel like that's interfering with my ability to lead the team if for example the scenario I had today where I moved to 101 if I was like cancelling 101s and like just that was me putting them off and not actually having the one-on ones I'm spread far too th so that's a reason that I

can empathize with I don't think it's a good excuse what else can I think of off the top of my head um there could be other stuff that like you whether it maybe it's not spread too thin but maybe your manager is being pulled into other things and that could be some something that might be a little bit more bureaucratic it could be they have um let's go a completely different direction maybe they have some uh some personal life stuff going on again like I'm not saying it's like a good excuse and I'm not saying that it's like it's fair to you or you know to other employees but if we think about it managers like I am I am also an employee I manage people but I'm also an employee um the same empathy that I would want to give my employees if they

had something going on in their personal life and had to step away or whatever or they had a period where they needed to to take more time off work or something like I would want to support that the difference though and why I don't like it's really hard for me to like try and defend this perspective is like um so yes I'm an employee and I need that kind of support makes sense but I still have a responsibility to my employees so I would you know if I needed time away like say um God forbid something was happening and uh family member was sick or something like that and I needed to spend time to take care of them like I wouldn't just like disappear on my team and not support them I would want to make sure they had that support so that's why

I'm saying like these are things I think these are all possibilities I don't think they're ex like good excuses but I think that is like a reality that could happen the Reas like I said the reason I wanted to talk through that is because like I think it's helpful to try and understand why it's very easy to observe the sort of the side effect and be upset by it and I feel like rightfully so like I'm not trying to say you should not have that kind of reaction but um I don't know I like I like thinking about empathy at least at a minimum I know the first example I gave is not something you should empath EMP with but had to say it okay so when this kind of thing happens right um what do we do about it how do we raise awareness

how like is it worth your time to raise awareness um when I've talked about this kind of thing in other videos it's kind of like I think it's about how much energy you want to put into it and the way I've described this for myself is like uh I don't know if I have like a hav't landed on like a succinct way of kind of framing up this thought but like I feel like I don't want to work anywhere where I don't feel like I want to try and improve things if that makes sense so if if I found myself working at a job and things got frustrating and the first thing that I thought was like time to get out probably not like a good place I landed at in the first place I would want to feel like hey this isn't going in

a way that I think is effective I should try and speak up about this I should try to drive some positive change I should talk to my manager about this right like for me personally that's a first step that I I want to take you might be different and that's totally okay I'm not saying right or wrong so for me that's the case um but it won't always be the case and what I mean by that is like if I know that I tried to do that and then I met with no support and I have had this this before where hey this I don't think is right um or this isn't optimal or this is going to cause issues and I think we need to do something about it like I feel it's important I have been met with not a big deal we

don't have to worry about that just like kind of like ah forget about it it's everything's it's almost like you're you might be OV exaggerating it not a big deal I don't I don't work in that spot anymore um because I know if I'm not going to be supported to drive change and that change isn't going to happen I will not make it happen because I will be met with resistance and not support and then it's not worth my energy so the way like I I have my own kind of personal limit for that my own litmus test for kind of figuring that out I think everyone's going to be different um I think the older I get and sort of the more experiences I have uh kind of like the less I'm willing to put up with if that makes sense um I try

my best like I I want to from from my time at a startup I feel like I want to try and get stuff done like whatever we need to do like let's make it happen let's go I want to be there I want to support it but um like I said if I lose my autonomy and I'm not able to drive change and I'm not supported then it's not worth my energy I will go find a place where where I can do that because ultimately I won't succeed if I'm unable to do that you might be different you might have a lower tolerance for that and you're like nope like as soon as there's like uh something that's not driving with you you're like I'll just move that's it I'm not putting up with it or you might be the complete opposite way so for

you to decide my my personal take would be if I observe this I would want to have a conversation with my manager say hey look um my wife actually she said something this evening that I thought was interesting about um she's a very smart woman she was saying something along the lines of when you're trying to have conversations with people there's a way to or like try to find a way that's instead of like I think you're doing this wrong is to express like like don't make it about them almost like talk about the The observed effect because it becomes less personal if I was like Billy Billy you're doing this wrong because it's something I don't like or I don't think is good you're more likely to be defensive if your name's Billy if it's not Billy maybe you're not defensive but um you're

more likely to want to defend that position and be like you know meet me with resistance on it but if I said hey I observe and then I talk about the effect that's observed and I'm like seems like a bad effect doesn't it Billy might be like I agree that's not a thing we want and then we can dive into that a little bit more and I can actually kind of include Billy in terms of like how we arrive at a more positive kind of solution like together right so I realize a lot of this sounds like it's very in what dream world do you live I get it um but the principle there right so I would try to talk with my manager about that to raise awareness because then it's like hey look I'm putting up my hand to say I think something

has to change and it's funny as I was reading through some of the comments on this thread some people were kind of like this like hey I would I would raise awareness about this like right something's got to change the challenge is if things don't change or like how much energy do you put into that you raise awareness and it's like okay okay yeah no I get it got to make it change and then you know a month goes by and you're like I got to raise awareness again oh no no it's okay like yeah I totally hear you like well things will change like I'll I'll start going to the 101s that I stop showing up for or something um or start going to like the standup meetings whatever it happens to be right and then and then nothing's changing like how long do

you go on for like that do you escalate it do you say okay like this is having a bigger effect on the team I need to go above and beyond I have done this in my career I have been in situations in my career where I felt so passionately that we were um being I don't know if I can say being neglected being mismanaged sounds like too harsh but like things weren't okay and it was like trying to raise awareness all the time until it was like okay like time to go up higher um because I cared and nothing was changing so that's what I did it different stages of my career and I'm including like what could be in the future um there may be times where like I'm just like I I simply do not have energy to invest into that yes I

care about a particular thing maybe not enough that I want to go invest that much energy in the scenario that I'm describing I was like I will put all my energy into this so I think that's a thing that you have to figure out for yourself because unfortunately if you're if you have familiarity with your work environment you might feel like maybe it is more maybe toxic is too strong of a word but like lack of support maybe people include toxic in that I don't know but if it's kind of like a pattern in the culture you might be picking up on this and you're like oh like H like that is kind of the culture around me and like now my manager like is part of that and like I don't know if that's really going to change so the reason I'm bringing this

up is like I think that we're all ultimately met with how much and what kind of action do we want to take versus when is it time to go so that's why I was saying for me it's like once I feel like I'm not supported and I have tried to raise awareness usually it's at least you know raise the awareness and then if things aren't changing it's it's time for me because I'm not going to grow here and I'm not going to be supported now let's let's go down the other path so you raise awareness and you get some acknowledgement from the manager okay hey like thanks for raising this awareness like um maybe they they have an excuse and this bothers you right like oh just been super busy we had whatever deliverables and you're kind of feeling like yeah but now you're prioritizing

those other things over me or over the team like I see you doing it with the other people too like that can feel frustrating right so if I Channel what my wife was saying like I said she's very smart um it's not hey manager like you're bad and you should feel bad and stop being bad it could be like hey just a heads up like this is like I don't I don't even have the words off the top of my head um but like addressing the effect on the team right not not me telling you manager like stop doing the bad thing to the team it's hey the team is uh the team is feeling pretty burnt out right they're they've been struggling with a bunch of things and we can't seem to get the support we need so I wanted to raise that awareness

to you right like I'm not telling you what you need to change but I'm telling you I observe this going on with the team I've had employees tell me this kind of stuff not not the not that specifically but I've had employees approach it in a great way and I like it's good feedback for me they've told me about this about people that don't report to me because in the greater team and I'm not saying it Microsoft or at the startup I'm just saying in my career because I'm not going to talk about either part specifically but I've had people say hey heads up to you like this is my observation of what's going on and it could be within my team I've had that and I've had it outside of my my direct reports and people are saying it's not because of so and

so or it's not because of you but here is the thing I observe with those individuals because at the end of the day that's going to be my if it's if they're reporting to me that's going to be my responsibility if they're not reporting to me my gut tells me it's still my responsibility to also try and raise awareness right if I have this is something I've tried to lean into my entire career if I have Frontline employees telling me like hey something's up I'm going to listen and I'm going to try to raise awareness to it and that's something that um I've tried to do my entire career because for eight years of my career before Microsoft I was an individual contributor and a manager at the same time I was on the front line and a middle manager it's the worst of all

the worlds and I got to do that now I just have the worst of the management World being a middle manager so I understand right and it's important for me to be able to have that kind of trust relationship with people I work with so that they will tell me stuff like that they're not ratting on people they're not blaming people but they're like hey heads up like I know you give a about this stuff so that's why I'm telling you I trust that you want to make these things better here's some observation here some information about what I see going on and like I'm telling you that because I trust that you can try and do something or at least that you'll you know raise awareness so someone else can and not that you're just going to say oh thanks and then like forget

about it for forever so for me those types of working relationships are are critical so something from in terms of my management leadership I try to lean into that I don't know where this conversation's going because I'm so completely burnt out um I I thought that this was a good one to talk through so um I think raising awareness is important if you're willing to uh getting the acknowledgement is a first step trying to frame it that it's not a hey quit screwing it up you're hurting the team but kind of observations about the team I I think are helpful um and honestly like depending on on the situation I can absolutely imagine situations where you kind of rise to the occasion right depends on the the work culture depends on the company size and the formality um I I will share this I don't

know if I've said this on video before so I don't know um I have absolutely in my career observed um what I felt like was like a team not being managed correctly and I have absolutely sort of uh worked my way to trying to help that team in terms of getting them on track getting them the support they need because they were simply not it was extra work was a ton of extra work um but it was like all I can do is raise a aess and nothing's changing nothing's changing nothing's changing and I'm going this is a critical part of the business I give a you guys don't okay and then tried working to drive change get things into a positive spot because something needed to change do I have energy for that kind of stuff ever again in my career I'm not sure

but you may find yourself in a situation like that um it might be it might be that your manager actually just to give you an example maybe there's a you got 25 people on your team reporting to your manager and it's like hey maybe you rise to the occasion and it's actually a good opportunity that your manager can have a team lead right so you're maybe not a uh peer to your manager you're still reporting to your manager but they kind of have like they'll give you some direct reports that could be an amazing career opportunity it's kind of kind of what happened to me in my early stage of my career but you might have an opportunity like that but it's going to require that your manager has some awareness or maybe their skip level but the point is you need to decide for

yourself how much energy goes into it how much you want to drive and push that but personally I would say if you do not feel supported doesn't have to be from your direct manager it could be your skip whoever if you don't have support it's going to be very hard and you might feel like you're fighting a losing battle so um I would just caution you against that so that you don't feel like you know you put so much energy into something and like get burnt out from it so I think I'll stop rambling so thanks so much for watching like I said Dev leader check out the resume review series if you're interested in that and of course if you have questions you want answered comments if you want to write something l you're be kept Anonymous look for Dev leader and people were

asking for it I'm going to try and find a way to get all of these on to Spotify but I have like 150 videos I don't know how many gigs of video I have to go upload to Spotify I don't even think people are going to watch the video on Spotify but I'm not going to upload just the audio that's so dumb I have the video so I'll figure that out that way the people that are running commuting cleaning their house I heard all sorts of things that's so cool thanks for thanks for kind of tuning in while you're doing that stuff it's uh it's awesome to hear so I will figure out a solution and uh we'll see you next time thanks again